


Danger Night

by siriuslyhiddenlawyer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Awesome Molly Hooper, BAMF Molly Hooper, Canon Divergence - A Scandal in Belgravia, Danger Night, Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, F/M, Molly Hooper - Freeform, Molly Hooper is everything, Pre-Reichenbach, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Series 2, Sherlolly - Freeform, a little bit of fluff and a little bit of angst, post gift sherlolly, pre-reichenbach sherlolly, sherlock series 2 spoilors, sherlolly angst, sherlolly fluff, sherlolly hidden moments, sherlolly post christmas party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 14:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15196760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslyhiddenlawyer/pseuds/siriuslyhiddenlawyer
Summary: Takes place during Scandal in Belgravia, after the morgue scene.After getting home from the morgue that fateful Christmas night, Molly Hooper receives a surprising text from Sherlock.





	Danger Night

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy the following! Although this takes place in the Stranger Than Kindness universe, this is a one-shot standalone!  
> This work has not be beta'd so any typos or errors are humbly mine, and I apologize in advance for them.

_Where are you?_

_-SH_

            Molly frowned at the text, swallowing against the lump in her throat as she pretended she wasn’t about to burst into tears again. She didn’t want to respond but God, how could she not? How could she deny him anything?

_Still at the Morgue?_

_-SH_

            She wondered if he knew how ridiculous it was for him to sign all of his texts with his initials, as if the person reading it wouldn’t know it was him. At least, she thought, he didn’t have to sign them when they were directed at her. She knew his number by heart, she knew everything about him.

            The entire night she had been struck by the thought that she knew everything about Sherlock Holmes, everything there was to know about him at least, but he knew nothing about her…didn’t want to know. They’d been friends since university, had shared more than their shares of calamities, heartbreaks, she’d pulled him through more than one drug fueled bender, had nursed him through recovery, watched over him as the cocaine and heroin left his system and wreaked havoc on him.

            She would never forget the night she finished writing her thesis, the way they’d sat in her tiny flat in celebration, getting heroically sloshed, as she called it, on a bottle of whiskey that they passed between them. It had been one of the best nights of her life, watching the way Sherlock had let down so many of his walls and they’d talked about the most idiotic things with that bottle of whiskey passing hands. Molly had woken up shocked, feeling as if she was still drunk when she realized she had fallen asleep on the floor, her head tucked against his chest.

            The permanent optimist that ruined her life had emerged in those moments as he slept, and she still remembered the idiotic grin she’d hidden against his chest, thinking that when he woke up, when he opened his eyes, they would hold warmth and affection. She was so convinced that she barely registered the hangover that was picking at the best of her skull, elated at this new day when she would finally _be_ with Sherlock Holmes.

            But he woken her up, the affection that had warmed his eyes the night before had solidified into ice, even the pale color of them looked like polar ice caps when he’d looked down at her. She’d known instantly to move off of him, sitting up and watching the graceful way he got up to his feet, grabbing his coat and walking out of her flat without a backwards glance. He’d texted her a few days later with a question about an experiment, and that had been that.

            No promises, no questions, no comments.

            And she’d forced herself to let the anger go, forced herself to focus on the joy of that night, on the peace she’d found simply listening to his heartbeat and his breathing as he’d slept on the floor, his arm around her shoulders.

            When he’d fallen pray to drugs not two months after that, she’d wanted to flatter herself and believe he’d succumb to old habits because of her. As she’d nursed him, as she’d pressed cold washcloths to his forehead, wiping away the vomit and blood from his mouth as they knelt together in front of the toilet, as she’d tried to keep him from scratching at his arms to ward away imaginary insects, Molly had thought she’d some truth crack from behind his visage, something else lingering in his frank eyes.

            But she knew better, and his sobriety had taken away whatever she’d imagined she’d seen in his eyes.

            Years passed, months melting into months and they’d shared intimacies of friendship and yet, no one really knew. She knew from just being around John Watson that he had no idea how far back her friendship with Sherlock went, had no idea what they’d been through together. She didn’t mind, she’d just accepted it for what it was.

            But there was no denying it in herself, and no denying it from Sherlock anymore it seemed, she was in love with him. And no matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she fought the sensation, she couldn’t get away from him, couldn’t stop loving him long enough to properly hate him.

Even when he hurt her and humiliated her, even when he treated her like an idiot and used idiotic compliments to make her do his bidding, even when he broke her heart into pieces.

She still loved him, and she always would. And she would continue letting him think he was winning, letting him think that he had her under his thumb.

Taking a deep breath, she finally responded to his text:

_Not at the lab._

_I’m at home now : )_

Molly looked at her Christmas decorations, the tree she’d been so excited to put up the moment the calendar had read December 1, the lights she’d put up to brighten her little flat, the fireplace she’d decorated with tinsel and her little nativity set. She’d always loved Christmas, and she always decorated her flat as if she had someone to celebrate it with. So when Sherlock had invited her to their little Christmas gathering, her heart fluttered, and the damned optimism had gotten her again, and she’d thought he finally knew what she wanted for Christmas.

But he’d ruined it, as she should have known he would. And she wondered if he’d opened the present she’d gotten him before he’d met her at the morgue to identify the body at the morgue. The supervisor on the clock at the morgue had sent her home after Mycroft and Sherlock had left, and she’d decided she was going to walk home in the light snow, her thoughts swirling with the flakes, trying not to think about who the woman on the slab was, and why Sherlock could identify her even when her face had been so horridly unidentifiable.

She’d heard the brother’s voices carry down the hall, could smell the cigarette smoke the filtered into the morgue along with their muffled voices as she’d put the body back.

But Molly had gotten home, taken a quick shower to get the smell of disinfected off of her skin and hair, defiantly putting on her favorite Christmas jumper and music to match the holiday, making herself a decadent mug of hot chocolate, drowning in marshmallows and a candy cane.

Five minutes after she’d responded to his text, as she’d curled up in the corner of her sofa with a book in her lap and soft Christmas music filling her flat, there was a knock on the door.

Molly knew who it was.

There was only one person on Christmas Eve as lonely, as alone as she was, with nothing better to do than knock on people’s doors at midnight.

  _Sherlock_.

“Molly,” he called. Ridiculous man, thinking she wouldn’t know it was him, “it’s just me.”

She opened the door for him, “what’s wrong?” she asked quickly, knowing there had to be something he needed her help with, some emergency that required her attention. Why else would he be here, the night that the woman that had been texting him had died?

“Nothing,” he blinked down at her, as if the question surprised him, even managing to look slightly offended. He pushed past her even though she didn’t invite him, but she didn’t have to.

He was Sherlock, and she was Molly.

And she let him think he could walk all over, let him think that his strength was his own.

“I just—” he rubbed his face as she closed the door against the cold that had followed him from the frightful weather outside, “Mrs. Hudson and John think I’m going to start using tonight, and so does Mycroft.”

            “Because of the—the woman on the slab?” Molly asked quietly.

            He nodded wordlessly, taking off his coat and throwing it on the couch, walking around her flat like a caged panther.

            “Are you?” she asked him, “should I be worried?”

            He didn’t say anything, just pacing her living room with so much concentration that he could’ve been measuring it for a new carpet. But she knew that look, knew that frown, saw the furrow creasing his brows. He was deep in thought, in his mind palace, formulating thoughts and words to give her, and she prepared herself for the lies and lines he would feed her about being sober, about being so above normal human emotions that mere death couldn’t shake him. But he surprised her, “I think yes,” he rubbed his face roughly, “I have this terrifying knowledge that if I’d stayed in Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson and John wouldn’t have been able to keep me clean. They overlooked my favorite hiding place.”

            “Okay,” she cleared her throat, resuming her seat in the corner of the couch, trying not to show her shock at his frankness, at his sudden willingness to be honest with her, “you’re going to have tell me where that is Sherlock. But I’m glad you’re here,” she told him, “I’m glad you’re trying.”

            He stopped his agitated pacing in front of her, looking down at her with a frown, his pale eyes narrowed, “how can you even stand the sight of me?”  
            Molly couldn’t help laughing at him, standing there in his black on black suit, looking so much healthier with the weight he’d put on, his eyes bright and full of intelligence, smelling of cigarette smoke and the night air, the clean snow. He was so oblivious to her, to her thoughts, “Sherlock,” she smiled, “you’ve said things a million times worse and never apologized.”

            “You know,” he started, his eyes still narrowed, “anyone else would have stopped talking to me a long time ago. But you—”

            “Yes,” she agreed, “I’m an idiot for putting up with you.”

            A smile lifted the corner of his mouth, “I wouldn’t say idiot. Molly—” he took a deep breath, shaking his head.

            “What will it be?” she interrupted him, watching emotions flooding his eyes along with the panic in his very soul at the prospect of acknowledging those emotions, “Cludo? Chess? Backgammon.”

            His grin was wide, “backgammon,” he told her.

* * *

 

            It was four in the morning before they finally played their last round of backgammon, their conversation sparse at best, concentrated around the game before them. When she fell asleep against his arm, he didn’t move her, and he would never tell her that he turned his face into her hair and inhaled the scent of her.

            Something had shaken loose in him that night, something had come to life that alarmed him, that had made him run to Molly.

            Always to Molly.

            _His Molly_.

            He wanted to be the man she wanted him to be, to be capable of the things she wanted from him, had spent every night since was 22 trying to become more than he was for Molly. Ten years later, and he kept finding out he wasn’t even worthy of her friendship, let alone her endless, generous heart.

            Was there a class? Were there sensible, scientific books that taught a man how to feel, how to love? Was there any scientific proof that love existed beyond the chemical reactions in the brain and the biological need to procreate? Was there any proof that _feelings_ were more than waste of hard drive?

            Sherlock didn’t sleep that night, keeping a watchful eye over Molly as she snoozed against his chest on the couch. He memorized her features with every shadow the rising sun cast across her sleeping face, his own features lifting into a smile he would never let her see when she murmured in her sleep or smiled, pressing her face into his chest before settling into slumber again.

            _His Molly_.

            But his thoughts were idiotic, absurd. Empty of utility.

            Love, romantic love, relationships, domesticity…they were fantasies of lesser men with lesser minds.

            That was the lie he told himself as day broke and he slipped out from beneath her sleeping body.

            _His Molly_.

            He was built for greater things, his mind sharpened for more than just the lies of love produced by faulty chemistry and biological urges to procreate.

            That was the lie he filled his marrow with as he covered her with the throw blanket.

            Affection, physical intimacy, romantic entanglement, all those ridiculous lies associated with the chemical reaction labeled as love were commercially created to trick fools into spending money they didn’t have on things they didn’t need for people they didn’t have utility for.

            That was the bitter lie he swallowed as he pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips, and quietly walked out of her little flat.

            The danger night was over, thanks to Molly and backgammon. He’d clung on to sobriety for another night because of her.


End file.
